Hello Acorn Club Members!
We hope you all enjoyed your summer holidays, though they seem like a long time ago now! In this issue we find out all about our furry friends here at Kelling Heath, the red squirrels…
Our Red Squirrels…
I am sure that most of you will have seen our Red Squirrels in the enclosure when you were here at Kelling Heath (that is if they weren’t asleep or hiding when you looked!). We had quite a lot of drama with them this year!
We had a new pair of squirrels move into the enclosure this spring. There is a man who helps us look after the squirrels, he co-ordinates several breeding pens like ours in Norfolk. He popped in one day and couldn’t see the squirrels and someone spotted a hole in the wire. He panicked, and we panicked and put up signs - ‘Have you seen our squirrels’. The next day someone called into reception - ‘I’ve just seen a squirrel in the pen’. On closer inspection we found that both squirrels were still in the pen! Panic over - a false alarm!
In early June three babies were born, though they stayed in the nest for the first few weeks. The first sighting was in July when the female was seen moving one of the babies, from the nest they were born in, to a nest box. A couple of weeks later they were big enough to be out and about by themselves. Before then the mum had spent most of her time in the nest, so the pen suddenly seemed really busy! One of the babies was light ginger, one was medium coloured and one was dark.
One day during the summer I was walking across the Village Square when someone came over to me and asked if we have red squirrels in the wild here, he thought he had just seen one. Well, I didn’t really believe him, red squirrels used to live here about 50 years ago, but not any more. When the grey squirrel (an American squirrel) was released in this country it did very well and spread, carrying with it a disease called Parapox virus. This virus kills red squirrels but doesn’t affect greys. Also some grey squirrels can be quite gingery and people sometimes mistake these for reds. Anyway, I went to check but before I got there I saw a red squirrel running along the pavement near the enclosure! Panic! There was definitely an escaped squirrel this time! I checked in the enclosure, the other four were still there. We checked for holes and found one which we patched up. We then set some traps on the roof of the enclosure, hoping that the food in them would lure the escaped squirrel (the medium coloured baby) into one of them. We also put signs up in the square asking people to report sightings to reception.
About a week later someone reported a squirrel in the owl pen! This time it was Quentin, the adult male. Jason, Anna and Stephen had an interesting time trying to get the squirrel back into the correct pen. Lots of chasing! They had to put jesses on the owls and tie them up so they couldn’t attack the squirrel. Eventually Quentin went back in! Quentin must have got under the wire between the owl & squirrel pen, so we fixed it. It
would have been easy for him to escape from the owl pen, good job he was spotted before he did!
For two weeks the escaped baby didn’t go in the traps, though he was seen in and around the Village Square, with some sightings a bit further away. We were beginning to lose hope…Then one day Anna went to feed the owls and squirrels and spotted all five squirrels in the enclosure! The baby was back! We thought we’d found all the holes but some how he had made its way back in! We searched the wire really really thoroughly this time and eventually found a hole! We’re fairly certain there aren’t any more!
Since then two of the babies (the one that escaped and the dark one) have been temporarily moved elsewhere. They will be going to Anglesey, Wales, soon to be released into the wild (where there are lots of other reds for them to live with). The baby girl is still with us at the moment; she will probably be moving to another enclosure in Norfolk and will hopefully have babies of her own.
Naming competition
In the summer we had a competition to name the baby squirrels. The names for babies born this year had to begin with R. Thanks for so many suggestions. The names we chose are:
Rascal (after all the trouble he caused by escaping!) Chosen by Laura Nicholas and the Alyns.
Raisin (for the dark one), chosen by Carol Ward.
Rosehip (for the girl), chosen by Charlotte Chase.
Congratula(for the girl), chosen by Charlotte Chase.tions to the winners, it was a difficult choice. Prizes are in the post!
Food Scramble
Can you unscramble the words below to find out what food we feed our red squirrels…
SHURSMOMO
SPUNATE
LEPAP
RACTOR
SNALETHUZ
CREWSTONE
SPEENONIC
WOSLUFREN ESSED
MUCCEBUR
For the answers click here
To downlod a copy of the newsletter which has a an extra maze puzzle click here
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